The reality of being pregnant in prison: ‘I pressed the call bell five times but was ignored’

When Anna* went into labour at around 5am in her prison cell, she pressed the call bell five times but was ignored, she said.

“I wasn’t actually unlocked until they unlocked the rest of the landing for the morning movement to start,” she told The Independent.

She had been remanded into custody when she was six months pregnant and stayed on remand until she had her son.

“I first pressed the bell at around 5am and didn’t get to the hospital until nearly 11am. I had my son in the early hours of the next morning. There was no care after I had my son, I was in prison for a week after his birth before getting bail and I didn’t see a midwife to check my stitches until I got home a week later.”

As a coroner finds that the death of baby Aisha Cleary, born in her 18-year-old mother’s prison cell, was a result of a combination of failures in her care, The Independent has spoken to former prisoners about their experiences of being pregnant in jail.

New figures show that 196 pregnant women were held in prison during 2022-23, with January of this year seeing the highest number of pregnant women (58) in custody.

The highest number in the prison estate last year was 39, in November 2021. There were also 44 births in custody in 2022-23, with one birth taking place either in transit to hospital or within a prison, and the rest taking place in hospital.

Anna said the only support she received was from Birth Companions, a charity that works with pregnant prisoners, and occasionally a midwife.

“I had midwife appointments but they were minimal and sometimes missed due to the midwife having limited time and too many women to see.

“I felt unsafe the whole time I was in prison: the procedures were slow and the staff weren’t caring at all. It’s also a very volatile situation as there are a lot of fights ... that happen within the prison, so a lot of time I kept myself in my cell.”

Before imposing a custodial sentence, a judge should be given a pre-sentence report about the offender’s circumstances, including whether or not they are pregnant – but these are not always available, Kirsty Kitchen, of Birth Companions, said.

“There are mitigating factors that a judge is meant to consider. However, there is a lot of inconsistency between magistrates and judges,” she said.

“We are seeing women come in every week on remand – who haven’t even been given a sentence yet – for theft, non-payment of council tax, or non-payment of TV licence fines, or for a drugs offence where there was a lot of coercion. Eleven other countries around the world prohibit pregnant women from being sent to prison, but we still send pregnant women to prison for shoplifting.”

The number of prisoners on remand is also rising, fuelled by court backlogs and insufficient community provision for vulnerable people, according to the Commons justice committee. There was an 11 per cent increase in the remand population from 2021 to 2022.

Susan* found out she was pregnant on the day that she was booked into prison on remand. “They give everyone a pregnancy test to do and I was as stunned as the person reading the results,” she told The Independent.

“The lady just handed me a leaflet talking about abortion. At the beginning, my pregnancy was never acknowledged,” she said.

After initially being placed on the top bunk of a cell bed, Susan was eventually moved to the wing for the pregnant and vulnerable prisoners. “As my pregnancy progressed, there were little things that weren’t right,” she continued. “Not knowing when you are going to hospital made me very anxious.”

“My son’s dad had to go through a very stringent process to attend the scan. He had to [have a Criminal Records Bureau check] and to sign an agreement that he wouldn’t give me any food or drink, or bring me anything on the visits to the hospital. We couldn’t touch each other; he had to keep his hands by his side. He wasn’t able to touch my bump until I was released.

“The normal parts of pregnancy we weren’t entitled to because I was a prisoner.”

On one Saturday night in her first trimester, Susan started experiencing severe stomach pain. “I rang the buzzer to tell the prison officers and they spent a while deliberating whether they could take me to the hospital, because I needed two officers to come with me.

“When you get to A&E, you have to be patted down. They have to make sure that I haven’t contacted anyone – bear in mind I’m in a great deal of pain and we don’t have access to phones in our cells at this time.

“I had to be handcuffed and it was the middle of the evening so lots of people were staring at me and everyone just looked so scared, I was so embarrassed.”

Susan started to bleed and was told that, as there was no early pregnancy unit open at the time, she would have to come back on Monday.

“I was so upset, and the way prison works, getting upset can lead to punishments. There have been times when I had a difficult visit, gone back to my cell and cried, and they put me on suicide watch. Which is crazy because I told them that I was fine, that I was sad because during my pregnancy all my emotions were heightened.

“In the car back from A&E, one of the prison officers was saying to me, ‘well maybe it wasn’t meant to be’, which made me incredibly upset. It made me very worried and anxious. That night I was allowed to ring my partner but I wasn’t even able to get out the words to express what was wrong.

“At 7am the next day, when the door opens, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was so incredibly sad and I had all these thoughts running through my head that I would lose my baby. The prison officer was threatening me that if I didn’t get out of bed they would put me on basic – which is taking away all of your benefits in prison.”

As her pregnancy progressed, Susan got hungrier, but she was denied larger portions of food.

“The lovely ladies on my wing, some of them were taking methadone and their appetite was suppressed, so they would wait until we were locked up. They were the wing cleaners and they would pass me their sandwiches through the window so I wouldn’t be hungry.

“I wasn’t allowed to buy a pregnancy pillow or a duvet to keep me warm. Not having a midwife in the prison full-time – to me was the most insane thing I have ever heard. It’s not a safe place for pregnant women to be.

“It is such a scary thought that so many children are being robbed of the opportunity to get here safely, and so many women are being robbed of the opportunity of having non-traumatic births.”

Prisons minister Damian Hinds said: “Aisha’s death was appalling. We continue to extend our deepest and most heartfelt sympathies to her mother and family.

“We have since made important improvements to the care received by pregnant women, including specialist mother and baby staff in every women’s prison, extra welfare checks and better health and antenatal support. While there is still more to be done to make sure expectant mothers in prison get the same care as those in the community, these changes will reduce the chances of such a tragedy happening again.”

*Names have been changed